Hino forecasts bumper years

At a recent media briefing in Brisbane, Hino Motor Sales Australia General Manager – Brand and Franchise Development, Bill Gillespie, was upbeat about the company’s performance so far this year.

He said there was an expectation that the strong sales growth would continue across 2019 and beyond.

“Our goal is to be number one for customer experience out of all the Japanese brands,” said Gillespie. “In doing so we’re aiming to garner 31 per cent of the medium-duty market.

“To date this year we’ve sold about 3200 trucks which is up around 530 units compared to the same period last year,” he said. “And we have 1600 units in our order bank which is the largest we’ve ever had. We expect to sell close to 5400 units by year’s end which is 20 per cent up on 2017.

“We attribute this to a number of factors: Infrastructure development, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne, is at an all-time high," said Gillespie.

"The economy is bubbling along nicely and the interest rate is staying at a record low. This has stimulated a lot of investment by businesses in replacing equipment.”

Gillespie went on to say that these factors have made the light- and medium-duty markets super strong. In Hino’s case this was helped along by some significant new model releases.

“Last year we launched the new 500 Series wide-cab which has standard stability control and a range of new safety features and gearboxes. This has really driven our success as the market is very attuned to safety features and a lot of our customers really appreciate the standard vehicle stability control."

“We also launched, last November, the 300 Series 4x4 and we expect to sell over 200 this year.”

Another new model release will happen in November this year with the introduction of a new series of FC, FD and FE 500 Series standard cab trucks featuring Allison automatic transmissions, stability control and reversing cameras across the range.

“We think it will be the safest medium-duty truck on the Australian market and we hope it will enable us to achieve 31 per cent market share and number one spot in that segment.

“We also have some other new models, including a new 700 Series heavy-duty prime mover, due to be released before 2020 to further bolster our sales."

“In 2019 we are targeting 6000 units for the year and the same for 2020,” he said.

“The next couple of years, we believe, will be really successful for Hino.”